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Dessert

Black Sponge Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, sugar, molasses, butter, sour milk, flour, cloves, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Black Sponge Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the molasses, butter, and sour milk, mixing until smooth.

  3. Gradually stir in the flour, ground cloves, salt, and baking soda until fully incorporated.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  5. Steam for 1 hour without uncovering.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets during steaming.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and deep sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce lift.

The step that matters

Keep the mold covered while steaming. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and cools the surface, which can cause the pudding to sink or turn heavy and uneven as it sets.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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